Louisiana State University

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-08

This project seeks to understand how receptor proteins at the surface of cells communicate with other cells. One class of these receptor proteins, called “integrins” transmit signals both into and out of the cell at the same time (these proteins “integrate” signals). Integrin signaling is essential for human cells to communicate with other cells and the environment to carry out immune responses, growth and development of the creatures, and prevent cells from forming carcinogenic tumors. The results from the proposed research will look at a specific type of integrin that will serve as a model for understanding the structure of activated integrin molecules. In addition to publication of the research, the results will be disseminated through oral and poster presentations at national and international conferences and at local, state, national and international science fairs. The project will train undergraduate and graduate students at Louisiana State University, as well as high school students at East Baton Rouge Parish in a range of methods taught by the PI and collaborators who have complementary expertise. The proposed experiments are designed to attract and retain high school, undergraduate, and graduate students, and involve them in interdisciplinary projects of fundamental importance to Biology and Chemistry. Through vigorous research activities and group meeting presentations, students will learn the methods of conducting research and, more importantly, develop the analytical thinking skills and work ethic that are crucial for success in scientific careers in academia, government, or industry. Typical integrin dimers are believed to adopt a bent, low-affinity conformation under physiological conditions, and undergo conformational change during ligand binding and signaling. Integrin αvβ8, however, shows high affinity for ligand binding at all times. This integrin dimer plays a critical role in the development of the central and peripheral nervous system. The PIs propose that the high affinity of integrin αvβ8 is closely related to its high affinity for ligand binding, anchoring nerve cells to the extracellular matrix. In this project, various methods will be used to study the structure, function, and signaling pathways of integrin αvβ8. The PI speculates that this integrin dimer provides a unique, innovative model to study a variant mechanism of integrin bidirectional signaling across the plasma membrane. The high affinity of αvβ8 is hypothesized to be the result of a stable structure “fixed” in the extended conformation, which will allow the dimer to be crystallized in the extended form. The project will combine biochemical, spectroscopic, and genetic approaches to test the hypothesis that the integrin adopts an atypical extended closed conformation with high affinity for ligands under physiological conditions. This project should lead to new understanding of how integrins interact with ligands in the extended, open conformation. This knowledge can then be used for the development of the next generation of antagonists targeting specific integrin conformation with improved therapeutic profiles. The multidisciplinary methods used in this study are also easily applicable to research fields of other proteins. This research is funded by the Cellular Dynamics and Function cluster in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences in the Directorate of Biological Sciences. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-08

Bin Chen of the Louisiana State University is supported by an award from the Chemical Theory, Models, and Computational Methods program in the Chemistry Division to develop a multi-scale framework in nucleation modelling. This framework will enable the study of systems that are far beyond the reach of the existing atomistic methods, such as the nucleation and growth of atmospheric particles, which is of vast importance for the formation of clouds, chemical transformations in the atmosphere, and climate radiative forcing, potentially playing a major role in air quality and climate change. Novel Monte Carlo techniques will be developed to quantitatively assess the thermodynamic stability of the clusters of various structures (including polymorphs), shapes (sphere, rod, or cube), and sizes (including infinite size, or bulk), enhancing understanding of thermodynamic landscapes and enabling precise predictions of formation kinetics. Broader impacts include improving our understanding of nanoparticle formation mechanisms crucial for applications ranging from climate modeling to nanomaterial design. The interdisciplinary nature of computational research will also foster a diverse educational environment, training students of all levels in advanced theoretical methods and computational techniques while promoting STEM outreach through interactive educational tools like molecular movies. The proposed multi-scale framework utilizes detailed computer simulations, employing atomistic potentials derived from ab initio calculations via active learning for smaller clusters, and theories with realistic models built upon simulation results and validated by experimental data for larger ones. Simulations tackle challenges in the initial nucleation state, where classical theories fail. On the other hand, theories excel for larger clusters, difficult for simulations due to computational demands. Thermodynamics-based theories are traditionally developed from the relationship between thermodynamic properties obtained from experiments, but such properties are difficult to measure accurately for small clusters with the existing experimental techniques. A key contribution here is to utilize the thermodynamic data harvested from computer simulation for not just the examination of the existing theories but also for the discovery of the thermodynamic relationship between different clusters, which allows for the prediction of the free energies of other clusters, e.g., clusters at other sizes including infinite, equivalent to bulk. Broader impacts include unprecedented fundamental molecular-level understanding of the mechanisms of the formation of various types of nanoparticles. New knowledge generated from this research will be made accessible to the broader community through scientific publications, presentations, and the internet. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-08

The project aims to serve the national need of recruiting and preparing a diverse population of expert STEM teachers who are equipped to thrive in high-needs schools and improve student-learning there. We apply the latest research on how mentoring relationships shape students' experiences, career trajectories, and competencies in professional work to STEM-teacher preparation. The first step will be to implement robust new recruiting efforts that invite applicants from historically underrepresented populations and initiate and sustain productive mentoring relationships. We will also upgrade the undergraduate curriculum to prepare prospective teachers to lead STEM learning in ways that respond to students' backgrounds and unique experiences. This project will pilot and refine an effective teacher professional development model based on a combination of mentoring, experiential learning, and integrated STEM learning. Successful implementation will result not only in the preparation and placement of teachers in schools that struggle to hire top-tier STEM teachers, benefitting local communities, but will also help to establish new models for the effective preparation of STEM teachers that may be valuable nationally. Based at Louisiana State University (LSU), this project is a partnership of the LSU College of Science, the LSU College of Human Sciences and Education, the East Baton Rouge Parish School System, the Iberville Parish School System, the LSU Upward Bound Program, the LSU Cain Center College Readiness Program, the LSU College of Science Freshman Seminar (SCI 1001), and LSU Enrollment Management. We will support approximately 17 undergraduate future teachers with scholarships of up to $20,000 per year for up to three years, an amount designed to make the program as broadly accessible as possible. The project will include new learning opportunities for future teachers to develop content-rich, culturally responsive teaching and mentoring skills. An enhanced induction system will leverage the experience of GeauxTeach graduates who are teaching in high-needs settings. Graduates will deliver excellent STEM learning in high-needs schools, improving opportunities in college and careers for diverse students. The project will enhance the reputation of LSU as a servant of the community and will promote a more diverse workforce through the preparation of K-12 students in STEM. By strengthening partnerships between high-need local education agencies (LEAs), community colleges, and LSU, the project will serve as a national model for positive, high-value-added interactions between universities and communities around them. Further, this work will contribute to the research goal of understanding how optimally to structure mentoring for K-12 STEM teachers in preparation and induction. This Track 1: Scholarships and Stipends project is supported through the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (Noyce). The Noyce program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become effective K-12 STEM teachers and it supports experienced, exemplary K-12 teachers to become STEM master teachers in high-need school districts. It also supports research on the effectiveness and retention of K-12 STEM teachers in high-need school districts. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-08

The equations of hydrodynamics model many phenomena in the physics of fluids/gases and are generally quite accurate for as long as the molecules of the fluid/gas remain "well behaved". That is, the molecules move according to a local aggregate velocity with little thermal variation between their individual trajectories. But certain situations (e.g. shock waves, cascading turbulence, astrophysical extremes) can arise in the evolution of these equations which challenge this assumption of "well behaved" molecules, possibly leading to model breakdown. Kinetic theory seeks to create a sufficiently robust model of high-energy and chaotic particle dynamics that can reach (and continue past) such physical states. It is therefore natural to investigate, on a mathematically rigorous level, the behavior of kinetic equations near these extreme states, and also to investigate how well the solutions to the kinetic equations approximate/converge to the original hydrodynamic model. This project advances the theoretical understanding of partial differential equations arising from physics and also investigates how kinetic models can elaborate on the shortcomings of the original scientific theory (e.g., a fluid simulator that switches to a kinetic model in the presence of extreme turbulent shocks, and that knows when to make this switch to minimize the error). The project consists of several parts suitable for graduate student research, designed to introduce young mathematicians to the broader field of applied partial differential equations, and to enhance their overall preparation in STEM fields. Findings will be made available to the general scientific community and, where possible, promoted through the investigator's institution to undergraduates in mathematics. The research goals of the project are attained by examining kinetic equations in four near-extreme situations where other (simpler) physical models are known to encounter problems: relativistic speeds, conflicts between thermodynamic and inertial equilibrium, boundary interactions, and implosion shocks. First, the project establishes the well-posedness and conditional regularity theory for the relativistic Landau equations, with particular interest in the dynamics of slower-than-light mass spreading. Second, the project creates a rigorous mathematical study on the effect of evaporative cooling in a self-gravitating gas cluster with particle collisions. Here gravity and thermodynamics pull the solution towards two different equilibria, but the conservation of mass and energy means the gas must somehow compromise between the two, while increasing entropy pulls the equation towards an irreversible limiting state (also fundamentally a three-dimensional effect, absent in two dimensions). Third, the project explores boundary interactions in kinetic equations, and whether these can be recovered as a limit of boundaryless “force field” interactions (at the level of high energy plasmas, “hard wall” boundaries are impractical). And fourth, the project explores the behavior of kinetic equations near certain known self-similar shock profiles for compressible fluid equations. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-08

Computer modeling results and empirical data analyses have indicated that anthropogenic global warming has caused hurricanes to become stronger, wetter, and slower-moving. As a result, coastal communities are facing increasing risks from compound flooding events caused by a combination of stronger hurricane winds, higher storm surges, heavier precipitation, and more severe flooding from rivers. For coastal risk managers, it is critical to have an improved understanding of the relative contribution between marine and terrestrial sources in these compound flooding events. This study will use an innovative approach to discriminate between marine and terrestrial deposits in sediment cores collected from multiple wetland sites impacted by recent hurricanes. Identifying sediment provenance will also elucidate the relative contributions of marine and terrestrial inputs to wetlands aggradation and provide valuable insights on wetland sustainability for coastal management agencies. This study will employ a multi-proxy approach to the discrimination of saltwater and freshwater sediment beds within sediment cores collected from a variety of coastal wetland environments. Spearheading the analysis will be the use of X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) to discriminate between marine and terrestrial sediments based on their chemical elemental composition. Pilot studies of the XRF technique, aimed at establishing elemental signatures of storm surge and fluvial sediment beds resulting from Hurricane Harvey (2017), show promise, but additional work to refine the technique and extend it to other environmental settings is warranted. Additional analytical techniques to be employed in the study include textural, loss-on-ignition, palynological, and foraminiferal analyses, and radio-isotopic dating for chronological control. This project is jointly funded by the Geomorphology and Land Use Dynamics (GLD) Program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-08

With the support of the Chemical Synthesis Program in the Division of Chemistry, Professor Justin Ragains of Louisiana State aims to develop new approaches to the synthesis of glycosidic bonds which leverage visible light and earth-abundant reagents. Glycosidic bonds comprise the backbone linkages of oligosaccharides and glycoconjugates (carbohydrates consisting of a small number of sugar units, and molecules consisting of sugar units linked to other biological molecules, respectively), which have a broad spectrum of biological and clinical relevance. The efficient, cost-effective synthesis of glycosidic bonds using non-corrosive agents is a longstanding and unsolved problem in organic chemistry, limiting their further development and therapeutic application. Successful execution of Professor Ragains’ research will advance the science of oligosaccharide and glycoconjugate synthesis while furthering our fundamental understanding of the chemistry of elements like sulfur, phosphorus, bromine, and iodine. This research will have important broader implications for the development of vaccines and drugs as well as the development of technologies used in medical diagnostics. Finally, planned public outreach activities include partnering with Louisiana State University’s Upward Bound program to teach low-income, first-generation high school students about chemistry and basic skills in the chemistry lab. This will prepare these students for future college studies. Professor Ragains and his students will study the visible-light-promoted formation of O-glycosidic bonds using chalcogenoglycoside electrophiles, alcohol nucleophiles, and promoters capable of acting as chalcogen, halogen, or pnictogen-bond donors. The fundamental process leading to O-glycosylation will be the photoinduced electron transfer from chalcogenoglycoside to chalcogen/halogen/pnictogen-bond donor. This process will be followed by a cascade of radical and polar processes ultimately leading to O-glycosylation. Chalcogenoglycosides to be studied will include thioglycosides and selenoglycosides, which will be paired with chalcogen/halogen/pnictogen-bond donors such as dibenzothiophenium and dibenzoselenophenium salts, perhaloalkanes (especially perfluoroalkyl bromides and iodides), diaryliodonium salts, and phosphonium salts. Structure-activity relationships for each of the reactive components and the resultant electron donor-acceptor complexes will be conducted through detailed mechanistic investigations. Stereoselective variants of the glycosylation processes will also be examined. The successful execution of this work will advance the fundamental understanding of chalcogen/halogen/pnictogen bonding and the attendant photochemistry of the electron-donor-acceptor complexes formed through these processes. In addition, expedient O-glycosylation processes amenable to scale-up and industrial applications under non-corrosive conditions may be developed. This work will have implications in the development of drugs for treatment of disease, glycoconjugate vaccines for disease prevention, and glycan arrays which are potentially useful for medical diagnostics. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-07

Since the invention of the laser, the development of ever more controlled pulses of light has facilitated progress in science, technology, and medicine. As an example, light pulses with very short temporal durations allow scientists to make “movies” of how electrons and atoms move around inside molecules, for instance during chemical reactions. The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for the development of attosecond pulses of light (the shortest ever made), which are produced in the process of high harmonic generation (HHG). HHG happens as a result of the interaction between an intense laser pulse and almost any nonlinear medium, and has proven to be a versatile source of short-pulse, well-controlled light in the ultraviolet (UV) and extreme UV (XUV) spectral region. This project is centered on the further development of HHG as a source of UV and XUV light, in particular in systems that are more complex than atomic gases, for which the majority of work has been done up to now. The PI and her group will work on the development of theoretical tools for simulating the HHG process and the light it generates, as well as applications of these tools to model results in collaboration with experimental colleagues. The proposed work will be relevant to open questions at the forefront of ultrafast science and will contribute to workforce development through the training of junior researchers at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The PI will continue to serve the AMO and broader physics community through service roles at the national level. The work in this project entails specific developments and applications for HHG in semi-conductor crystals, as well as for HHG in organic molecules. In crystals, the PI and her group will continue their on-going development of a versatile theory tool that is capable of describing the coupled microscopic and macroscopic dynamics of HHG in crystalline solids, through the build-up and phase matching of the HHG light. This tool is based on the coupled solutions of the semi-conductor Bloch equations and the Maxwell wave equation, and will require high-performance computing resources. The understanding and macroscopic control of the properties of HHG in crystals, similar to what is routinely done in gas-phase HHG, has been largely unexplored even though it is essential for the development of solid-state HHG as a probe of ultrafast dynamics. For example, in order to interpret features in the HHG spectrum in terms of the structure and dynamics of the host material it is necessary to know what role macroscopic effects play in shaping those features. In organic molecules, accurate calculations of HHG are extremely challenging because there are so many degrees of freedom involved. The group will use time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) to simulate the HHG process, with the goal of developing TDDFT as a reliable tool for molecular HHG calculations, allowing more direct comparisons between calculated and experimentally measured results. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-07

This award supports research in relativity and relativistic astrophysics, and it addresses the priority areas of NSF's "Windows on the Universe" Big Idea. This award supports research in gravitational wave astronomy. The last several years have been very exciting in the field, starting with the first detection of gravitational waves in 2015 from a collision of black holes 1.3 billion years ago, and with about 200 detections since then. The LSU group has been a critical contributor to these discoveries. The group's activities in the next years will focus on aspects of characterization of the very complex NSF's Advanced LIGO gravitational wave instruments, as well as the characterization of their data. These efforts are fully integrated with those of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) and are closely related to the activities of the LIGO Livingston Observatory, located only 30 miles from the LSU campus. In doing its research, the group will train undergraduate and graduate students and a postdoc, as well as share the research with the general public. The LSU group will pursue research activities in two main topics, all coordinated with the LSC and key to the improvement of detection rates of gravitational waves with the Advanced LIGO detectors. The first topic is about characterizing the Advanced LIGO detector and applications to future designs; the group will help diagnose and improve the detector's sensing and control of the alignment degrees of freedom. The group will model the performance of the system, compare models with actual performance, and then apply the models and the experience to the conceptual development of such systems for upgraded detectors. The second topic is analyzing data from the Advanced LIGO detector; the group will identify and eliminate when possible instrumental artifacts, in particular those related to the group's expertise on scattering sources. The group will eliminate the cause of the transients when possible and find out the artifacts that most affect them. The group will also work on reducing the effect of these artifacts on the low-latency searches for astrophysical signals in LIGO data. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-07

Though Einstein’s theory of General relativity is immensely successful in describing the evolution of our Universe from the moments after the Big Bang till the present epoch, it breaks down near the cosmological and black hole singularities. The fundamental questions about the resolution of singularities, initial conditions of the universe, and the emergence of space and time from the Big Bang have remained open for many decades. Answering these questions requires a union of gravity and quantum theory, which is one of the fundamental problems in theoretical physics. In recent years, progress in applying techniques of loop quantum gravity has allowed us to concretely answer these questions in various cosmological and black hole spacetimes. This award aims to explore quantum gravity effects in various spacetimes to understand how to resolve problems of singularities, how to extract new physics beyond Einstein’s General Relativity, and how to potentially test this new physics using cosmic microwave background experiments. Progress in answering these long-standing fundamental questions will not only benefit the wider community but also scientists engaged in research in classical and quantum aspects of gravity, cosmology, and high-energy physics. Graduate students will be trained in solving complex problems using rigorous analytical and computational techniques. The main goal of this research is to explore new physics emerging from the quantization of gravity using non-perturbative techniques employed in loop quantum gravity. In the last decade, loop quantization of various cosmological and black hole spacetimes has provided important insights into the resolution of singularities and potential signatures in the cosmic microwave background. This award aims to answer multiple fundamental questions in this approach. The goals include: (i) Understanding the way quantum gravity effects affect the Mixmaster dynamics and singularities in anisotropic models and the fate of singularities in inhomogeneous spacetimes, such as Gowdy models; (ii) The way different regularization and quantization ambiguities affect the physics at the Planck scale, and how one can phenomenologically constrain these ambiguities; (iii) Exploring the consequences of polymer matter in loop quantized spacetimes; (iv) Loop quantization of black hole spacetimes; and (v) Addressing foundational issues in quantum cosmology such as quantum to classical transition and quantum probabilities. This research is expected to significantly broaden and advance our understanding of the physical implications of quantum gravity and lead to insights into the nature of spacetime beyond Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-06

Nexus aims to democratize access to computational resources and promote innovation across various emerging sectors, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and biotechnology. At its core, the project seeks to address the growing need for an open, high-performance computing (HPC) ecosystem that is accessible, secure, and efficient. This project is poised to serve the HPC community by making cutting-edge computational tools available to a broader range of users, thereby accelerating scientific research and technological innovation. The broader impact of the project lies in its potential to drive advancements in fields such as data analytics and AI, making it a strategic asset for technological and economic development. Nexus revolves around developing the HPX asynchronous many-task (AMT) runtime system. HPX is a mature, standards-based, open source platform for high-performance computing (HPC), designed to provide flexibility and efficiency for applications that require high levels of parallelism and scalability. The project's goals include enhancing the accessibility of the library, improving its software ecosystem and community, and developing a sustainability plan. This involves enhancing documentation, developing online courses, and fostering collaboration within the HPC community. The technical focus of the project also includes leveraging the RISC-V (reduced instruction set computer) architecture and the LLVM/MLIR (Multi-Level Intermediate Representation) compiler to create a co-designed environment that improves system efficiency and reduces energy consumption. These efforts aim to make HPC resources more accessible and cost-effective, contributing to economic development and enabling innovation in the scientific research and technology sectors. This project is jointly funded by the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and the Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) Program which seeks to harness the power of open-source development for the creation of new technology solutions to problems of national and societal importance. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-06

The broader impact of this I-Corps project is the development of a new methodology to prevent the failure of above ground oil storage tanks during floods. This solution is based on the development of a new methodology to tether new and existing above ground oil storage tanks to prevent failures during floods. Notably, out of approximately 5,000 tanks in the Houston Ship Channel, about a thousand tanks are located within the 100-year flood plain, making them vulnerable to storm surge-induced flood events. The failure of the tanks can lead to catastrophic oil spills. The proximity of the tanks to rivers and oceans increases the spill-induced environmental risks and chances of wildlife habitat damage in the surrounding areas. Furthermore, in many areas, such as the Houston Ship Channel and in Louisiana, tanks are located very close to residential communities. Potential spills caused by the failure of the tanks would expose these communities to hazardous substances. The improved flood safety tanks afforded by this tethering system will help improve the well-being of the surrounding communities and the environment. Furthermore, several regional economies, such as in Louisiana and Houston, TX, depend on industries that use these tanks extensively. The improved safety of tanks can make economies and communities that are dependent on these industries more resilient to floods. This I-Corps project utilizes experiential learning coupled with a first-hand investigation of the industry ecosystem to assess the translation potential of the technology. The solution uses anchor chairs, steel cables, and screw/helical piles to tether new and existing above ground oil storage tanks to prevent failures during floods. The steel cables will connect the anchor char that will be welded to the tank with the helical pile which will be embedded into the ground. The solution will allow controlled flotation of the tank during floods to avoid failure of the bottom plate, located on the underside of the tank. The existing anchor chair designs only consider vertical forces, so controlled floatation of the tanks also requires anchor chairs to sustain horizontal forces. The new design for anchor chairs can sustain a horizontal force of up to 36% of the vertical force. Computer simulations were used to develop the design for the new anchor chair. Industry feedback will be used to further develop this solution and the anchor chair design. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

Other NSERC · FY 2024

phylogeography, biogeography, genomics, population genetics, comparative, speciation, Aves